By Daphne Bishop Much has been said about the collapse of General Motors and its attendant, cataclysmic effect on the cities, towns and people of our country. There is little optimism, and a dearth of concrete proposals or solutions. But in Anderson, Indiana, once a thriving GM city, five young entrepreneurs see the growing of […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is my favorite labor union. It doesn’t betray its members, unlike another I could mention, but won’t. It puts its money where its mouth is — in this case working for real health insurance reform — again, unlike said other international union. Now SEIU has launched […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson I’ve found a new toy. Actually, it may turn out to be a very useful toy, but I won’t know that until I’ve played with it for a while. You can play, too. OpenStreetMap is a map of the entire world, completely editable. You can take part in the editing if […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Photo: Fox News I may have my head handed to me for this one, but this quote from Bill Maher’s June 19 monologue, “New Rules,” on HBO is something I wish I’d written. [… E]very time Obama tries to take on a progressive cause, there’s a major political party standing in […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson UPDATES are in italics. Let’s hear it for Cynthia Davis, state representative from Missouri’s 19th District. She’s found a novel way to motivate low-income youngsters in her state: let them go hungry. Davis, who chairs the legislature’s Special Committee on Children and Families, is seriously bent out of shape over a […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson I don’t normally post entire texts from another blog, but this message is too important to be missed. While President Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership seem obsessed with begging for the support of a few Republican legislators, a majority of the nation’s voters — both Democrats and Republicans — want […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson OMG, as the texters say. The apple I had for lunch may have had 42 different pesticide residues on it, according to the USDA pesticide testing program. Yes, I washed it, but I have no idea how much residue washing removes. I guess this is why some people (not me, not […]

by Debra Kozikowski “I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes,” wrote President Barack Obama in an essay on fatherhood published in today’s Parade magazine. In it, the president talks about growing up without his father being present and notes the “weight” of what that meant for him, and what it means each and everyday for the children of absentee […]

by Debra Kozikowski Dr. Eric Hooglund is a professor of politics at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and one of the world’s foremost experts on Iran. His recent report on rural Iranians who questioned their country’s election results appeared this week in Harvard’s Nieman Reports: When news spread on Saturday (June 13) morning that Ahmadinejad had won more […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Only in America would an industry dedicated to selling petroleum-based fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, and pesticides so safe you’re advised to put on a respirator before you apply them to your plants call what they advocate “conventional agriculture.” Only in America would a lobbying organization representing this industry – an organization […]